I contacted friend and Author Martha Randolph Carr to see if she’d be willing to give IU readers a sneak-peek at her latest thriller, “WIRED.” She happily complied with enough material to make into a series of sneak-peeks!

Martha describes “WIRED” as an old school thriller set in 1989 just before the age of the internet, cell phones, home computers or even ATM’s. She invites the reader to “Enjoy reading about an era that had more in common with the technology of 1889 than 2011 and a time when people had to lay eyes on each other and communicate face to face if they were going to stop a killer.”

Also, be sure to check out Martha’s excellent website. Without further ado, we present the first excerpt from Martha Randolph Carr’s “WIRED.”

Chapter One

June, 1989

A piece of hair lifted in the breeze, gently rolling before settling back against an ear. Flies and gnats darted around, buzzing at the upturned ear, but no hand was raised to bat them away. The morning was cool with a light breeze that raised the fine, downy hair all along her back and down her slim bottom, stopping where she had carefully shaved all the hair from her thighs to her toes.

Her face looked out toward the large dirt parking lot that curved around in the shape of a half-moon. If she had lifted herself up onto an elbow, she would have seen the edge of the bluff and the beginning of the tall grass and weeds that marked the steep descent down toward the old parts of town.

Her arms were stretched out to one side, the hands coming together in what looked like a last prayer. Whoever had laid her there had been gentle when they were putting her down. She hadn’t been dropped and left.

From a distance, particularly in the headlights that night, she looked as if she were sleeping with her knees curled up to meet her elbows. A guy honked his horn a few times before getting agitated and throwing his car into park. Told his girlfriend in the seat next to him to wait as he pushed the door open and stomped over to tell the girl to get out of the way, sleep it off at home.

Later, he’d shake and cry as he called the police, trying to explain what he knew, who he saw. Tell them that the girl was in his class at school, that he had seen her earlier that day, that her skin was so cold to the touch. He’d have nightmares about it for years to come, each time snapping awake before he touched the body and felt the skin slacken under his fingers.

The summer was about to take an ugly turn for the worse, for everyone.

I guess that’s what it’s called—genre hopping—when a writer doesn’t stick to one single category. Apparently we’re not supposed to do this. I can’t refer to the exact blog posts or writerly advice articles that caution against it, but they seem quite adamant that as you build your platform and bolster your brand, you will confuse people if you don’t stick to one aisle of the virtual bookstore.

Now, I don’t pretend to be anything other than an indie author with one book out and a number of others in the pipeline, and am no sort of expert on the inner-workings of the publishing industry. Nor do I have any pretense of being either media savvy or adept at anything technological other than banging out a yarn on my keyboard.

Like this:

Kidnapped and held at gunpoint by his former IRB comrades, Bulmer Hobson, the misunderstood antihero of 1916, denounces the ill-fated Easter Rising he had tried to prevent. While his captors joke about shooting him and dumping his body on the railroad tracks, his terrified fiancee roams the chaos-ravaged city in search of him. Fifteen years of political rivalry, international conspiracy, botched love affairs, and taunting promises of glory culminate in a bloody showdown. Once branded ‘the most dangerous man in Ireland’ by the police, Hobson is about to be deleted from history. Based on historical accounts, Martyrs and Traitors is an intimate glance into the conflicted and shattered heart of Ireland’s discredited patriot.

“Neary’s latest imaginative foray into historical fiction introduces us to a broad tapestry of fighters for Irish freedom. This is not your usual recounting of the Rebellion. Here you will find Quakers and Countesses, actresses and aristocrats—all of whom are bound together by the desire to define their nation on its own terms.” ~Meghan Walsh, Managing Editor of The Recorder